


we remake the skies

by wearethewitches



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Reality, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Arguing, Autism, Autism Spectrum, Burglary, Debt, Developing Friendships, Extortion, F/F, F/M, Gen, Genderbending, M/M, Magic, Magic-Users, Minor Belle/Mulan, Mother-Son Relationship, Non-Canon Relationship, Past Abuse, Roni's Bar (Once Upon a Time), Rumplestiltskin | Mr. Gold Being an Asshole, Technology, Time Travel, Trans Male Character, Undercover, Wishverse (Once Upon a Time)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-24
Updated: 2018-05-26
Packaged: 2019-05-13 09:35:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 20,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14746350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wearethewitches/pseuds/wearethewitches
Summary: "I'm sending you away, so I don't have to bother with you anymore. That little town of yours…Storybrooke. How do you believe it will fair with two Evil Queen's on the loose? You're going to another reality, dearie and not even the power of the Author can bring you back here – it's written, you see."-When the Wish Realm Rumplestiltskin instead banishes both Roni and King Henry to an alternate Storybrooke forever, the two must work together to make a life in their new realm in the midst of a murder mystery; and unluckily for Roni, it seems that some of her old memories are useless, as it becomes more and more apparent that this new reality is far from the one she left.





	1. Chapter 1

The dark grey portal disappears behind her as she stumbles through the alley. There’s no wind to speak of anymore, but she still holds her leather jacket tight around her body so the corners don’t go flying. Her brain is stuck on the image of her son with his family, stuck in the snow-globe while she's here. _The horrors that can be wrote with the Author’s Pen_.

Roni staggers to lean against the wall of the building, muffling a cry as her arm brushes the brick.

Glancing down at the limb, she can’t see what’s wrong with it, but she knows there _is._ Roni can’t heal it, either, not with her magic. Being here, in Storybrooke – in _a_ Storybrooke, in a _different_ Storybrooke where maybe, _maybe_ she can find help – Roni is already feeling the effects. The town isn’t cursed, thankfully, but the magic Rumple brought here hasn’t settled into the ground yet. It still moves through the air, coming and going, like snow in a snow-globe. _We’re very early in the timeline._

“Where are we?” King Henry questions, rasping it out. Roni spares him a pained look, trying to erase the memory of what he did – what the Wish Realm version of Rumplestiltskin tricked him into doing. He’s still in his Enchanted Forest tunic and chainmail, the Pen still clutched in his gloved hand. There’s a slash across his forehead, one that dribbles down between his eyes, down the side of his nose, larger, longer and higher than the one above his eyebrow. “What is this place?”

Roni mumbles, “Rumplestiltskin wrote everything out and you made it truth. We’re in Storybrooke, in another reality, trapped forever.”

King Henry looks to the Pen, squeezing it tightly, “I can reverse it, with this.”

“No, you heard him,” Roni shakes her head, using her good arm to reach up to wipe her own tears, “No Author can write us out of this realm. We can’t ever leave. We- we’re stuck here.”

“You mean _I_ am,” he says, glaring at her, “I still want my revenge. I _will_ kill you, I- I _will._ ”

Roni looks at him forlornly, this boy who is her son, yet who isn’t, who never knew that life. This Henry is – _was_ – a king, abandoned by his mother and left alone, struggling and grieving. It’s Roni’s fault, too. She crushed the hearts of the Wish Realm versions of Snow and David. That was her mistake – King Henry is her responsibility, now.

“I’m sure you will, but let me get you settled before you do. This Storybrooke won’t take kindly to strangers appearing in the middle of the night with dead bodies trailing in their wake.” Roni warns, knowing just from the magic – the shifting magic, the _new_ magic – that this is a newly-awoken Storybrooke. For all Roni knows, her mother is walking about. “We need new identities.”

“Why?”

“Because there’s already a Henry and Regina here,” Roni says, knowing she already has her Cursed persona on hand to become. She just needs to change her face and then she’s good. King Henry though, is another matter. “Were you ever called anything else in your realm? Did you have another name or alias you’re comfortable with?”

King Henry shifts uncomfortably. “My secondary name was Daniel. My mother called me Danny, sometimes.”

Roni sends him a disbelieving look for a moment, before thinking about it properly. The Wish Realm was many things, but divergent from most canon events – like Henry being born, like Neal being his father – it was not. _He’s called **Henry Daniel** , for goodness sake._

“Daniel,” Roni murmurs. “Do you know the origin of that name?”

“No. Why? Do you?”

Roni clears her throat, biting her tongue hard as her hurt limb moves, aching sharply. “Your realm was created from a wish – Emma, she wished she was never the Saviour and the wish created your realm. History was different, the Dark Curse was never cast – but things were still the same. You were still alive. You were- _are_ called Henry Daniel. In this realm, I gave you those names, after my father and a man I loved dearly.”

King Henry looks at her in confusion. “But I don’t understand, why would my mother, Princess Emma – why would my mother give me those names if you gave me them?”

“Magic. The Wish Realm wasn’t perfect.” Roni shakes her head before pushing off the wall. “If anyone asks, I’m Roni, Roni North. You’re my son, Daniel North.”

“I am _not_ your son,” he says, vehement and angry, glaring.

Roni glares right back at him. “That doesn’t matter right now. This Storybrooke will vilify us both if we tell the truth.”

“And how do you know that?” he questions, stepping forwards in a threatening manner, hand going to his sword.

“Because I do, now stay still,” Roni steps forwards, raising her hand, focusing. King Henry – _Danny_ – becomes confused, anger melting away.

“What are you doing?” he questions, an uptick in fear alerting Roni to his discomfort. However, she has to focus, the magic around her slipping away out of her grasp. She grits her teeth, before finally getting the glamour into place, panting slightly. “What did you do?”

“A glamour.” Roni gulps down a massive breath, limbs shaking. She shuts her eyes, raising her hand again, focusing on herself. It’s not easy, but she does it again, though this time, she can’t help but stumble back again to the wall, leaning up against it. Her legs feel like lead, yet she can hardly feel them at all, at the same time. Her head pounds and the magic in her body feels weak, thinned out.

“You don’t look that different,” Danny says. Roni looks at him and smiles only very slightly.

“Neither do you, but it’s the small differences that matter. We have to pretend we’re people we’re not. Which is why the armour has to go. Come on – we have to break into a shop.” Roni forces herself up, guessing there’s a fifty-fifty chance she’s going to drop. Glamours have always been a hard enchantment for her to cast. Upkeeping it is nothing, but that original casting…

“Woah!” Danny leaps to her side as she nearly falls over, pulling her good arm over his shoulder. Roni chuckles.

“Ever the chivalrous boy.”

“You don’t know me,” he argues.

“But I do, I raised you,” Roni says to him, twisting her head to look at him. “You don’t remember it that way, I know, but you’re the same person. You are a brave, kind person. Every version of you means everything to me and no matter what, I love you.”

“What about your real son? The Henry Mills with a wife and daughter?” he questions.

Roni smiles at him, pained. “He’s alive. I know that we’re both going to be lost forever to them – Rumplestiltskin made sure of that, with his writing – but Weaver, Gold, he’ll take care of them. That’s what grandparents do.”

“Grandparents?” Danny questions, frowning.

Roni tilts her head. “You don’t know, do you? About Baelfire?”

“Who is Baelfire?”

“You knew him as Neal,” Roni says, smirking, “and he was the lost son of Rumplestiltskin. Every Henry is his son – the Dark One’s grandson.”

“Really?” Danny asks, astonished. “The Dark One – the _Dark One_ – is my grandfather?”

“Oh yeah,” Roni confirms, before whimpering as he arm shifts again. “I need to get to a hospital. You can’t go in those clothes, though. You’ll be caught out in an instant. We need- we need to get you clothes, first.” She forces herself to look forwards, eyeing the street past the end of the alleyway. The door to Archie Hopper’s office is in view, which means they’re close – if not right beside – Granny’s Diner. Roni walks forwards, Danny taking a small amount of her weight as she slumps a little, stopping them as they get to the edge of the alley.

Across the street, she sees herself.

“Oh my,” Roni murmurs, watching Regina Mills in her boots and long coat stalk to the door, entering. It seems odd to Roni that she saw Archie so late at night, in the past, but this isn’t just the past – it’s another reality. Maybe it’s normal for Regina Mills to see the cricket so late. She wrinkles her nose as another thought occurs to her. _Maybe in this realm, they’re sleeping together._

Popping her head around the brick, Roni spies Red gathering up the sign for Granny’s, going back down the path a moment later.

“This realm is strange,” Danny says in a hush. Roni tilts her head.

“You get used to it. Come on, hurry.”

They head to the right, down to where Roni knows is a clothing store – she always used to buy Henry’s things there when he was growing up. It changed with the times, unlike some parts of town. A lot of machinery – like cars, computers and phones, they never changed. Style though, like clothes and organic produce, those did and right now, Roni thinks it’s a blessing in disguise. They reach the store and Roni leads Danny round the back, feeling coming back to her legs and her headache subsiding as soon as they’re out of the streetlight.

“I’m okay, now,” Roni murmurs to him as she pulls away, pulling a crate over to the side of the door, standing on it and peeling the cover off the security alarm.

“What are you doing?”

“My Cursed persona dabbled in, well…” Roni pauses, “Let’s just say I was the most secure place in Hyperion Heights and it wasn’t because the police station was right down the road.”

“Police?”

“City guards,” Roni translates, fiddling with some wires, in the back of her head already making a note to find a way for the security budget for Storybrooke to be increased. _Or maybe, I could have a business. Danny and I could just slip into Storybrooke and make a life. I could buy out that place where Aesop’s Tables is going to be, make a new Roni’s Bar, doing security work on the side._

“There,” she says, after turning the system off. “Now we don’t have to worry about alarms going off. The Land Without Magic uses electronic systems – electricity being lightning trapped in wires and containers – to help keep things secure. Do me a favour and break down the door, dear.”

Danny raises his eyebrow at her, before turning to the door and kicking it a few times breaking it around the paltry lock. They make their way inside, the alarm staying off. However, an issue arises in the lighting – the dim fire exit signs far from enough to see. She debates over whether she should turn the lights on, before she remembers her phone in her back-pocket. Taking it out is awkward and a little painful as her other arm shifts again, but she gets it out, the camera flash turning on, to Danny’s surprise.

“What-”

“I’ll get you one,” Roni says, “It’ll be a learning experience. You’re young, you’ll figure it out.”

Searching the aisles, Danny at her heels, Roni picks him out several different outfits, figuring out his sizing with trial and error. Danny marvels at all the soft fabrics, plastic buttons and price tags, asking about them. Roni answers his many questions – and he’s full of them. Only when they’ve finally decided on some new outfits for Danny and collected some more things more in Roni’s range, does she spot the security camera, though.

“Damn.” Roni stares at it. _I’m an idiot._ She hands their things to Danny, who juggles the plastic bags for a moment, already newly dressed in blue jeans, a black round-necked shirt, a grey hoodie, sports socks and trainers. His Pen is tucked into the hoodie pocket. Leaving him in the shop, she heads into the back, taking a couple of minutes to figure out the system before sabotaging the tapes. She wants to do more, but a look at a clock shows its nearing eleven at night.

 _Where do we go?_ Roni asks herself, liberating two cardboard boxes and bringing them out, so they aren’t so conspicuous with their shopping bags. _Might as well look like we’re moving, rather than shoplifting._ _Where can we go, though, really? 108 Mifflin is out, everywhere I go regularly is out, we **definitely** can’t get a room at Granny’s B &B…_

“We could camp in the woods,” Danny offers casually, causing Roni to make a face.

“No. We don’t have any gear, for a start. Also, I refuse. The outdoors are horrible and Maine is very far north – it’s already freezing.” At her own words, Roni grabs a winter coat for him on the _On Sale_ rack, recognising it as one David has in the future, with the little brown leather strap around the high collar. It doesn’t quite fit Henry’s grey and blue aesthetic, but Roni would rather he be warm and of course, he has his sword strapped on too, so he’s already a little out of style.

 _Danny_ , Roni corrects herself. _His name is Danny._

In truth, camping might be safer than breaking into an empty house. Storybrooke is filled to capacity right now, with the exception of the apartment over the library – which will be filled with Belle’s belongings soon enough, if it isn’t already. Camping in the woods isn’t Roni’s idea of comfortable, however.

“Are there not any empty homes? Loggers cabins?”

_Cabins._

“There is a place,” Roni says. “It’s an hour or two’s walk from here. Rumple has a cabin in the woods – it’s one of the only legitimate ones that are listed. If there are any others, I don’t know of them. We can stay there. It shouldn’t be inhabited, I don’t think.”

“Okay, let’s go, then,” Danny goes to move, but aborts at the last moment, focusing on her as she struggles to hold her box of clothes with one arm, resting it on the nearby counter. “Your arm. You need to see a healer.”

“That’s why I said I needed to go to the hospital.” Roni breathes in deeply, before leaving the box, stepping away. “Could you take it? We’ll go to the hospital first. Say that I fell or something.”

“Where’s the hospital?” Danny questions, taking the box with ease.

“Follow me.”

* * *

Dr Whale is obviously crabby and he looks at her with suspicion. Roni pretends ignorance and Danny plays the concerned son very well, after he gets his head cleaned up and taped with butterfly stitches. Their boxes are piled up on the ground beside Danny in his chair as Whale sets her arm in a make-shift splint, while they wait for the x-ray to come through.

“I’ve not seen you around town before,” he says.

“We were hermits, practically,” Roni says. “Ordered pizza all the time and ran out of cereal every other day.”

“Hmm…” Whale eyes her again. “You look a lot like the Evil Queen.”

“I’d hope so,” Roni says, “I’m a relative. We’re cousins, through Prince Henry. I haven’t seen her since we were young and she’s certainly never met Danny.”

“Danny – is that his given name?” Whale is one of the few to know the specifics about Daniel and Roni is very aware of that.

“His Cursed name is Daniel North,” Roni replies. “He was called Xavier in the Enchanted Forest – Xavier IV.”

One of the nurses at the end of her bed makes a noise of surprise. “Really?”

Roni glances at her, not recognising her. “You know of us?”

“No, no, I- I just…” the nurse blinks, “Are you another granddaughter of Xavier III? Like Her Majesty?”

“Yes,” Roni says. “Though, we prefer our Cursed personas, if you don’t mind. It’s a lot easier to live here, though it’s strange and- and hard. I miss home.”

“So do I,” Danny mutters, watching them, clutching Roni’s jacket on his lap. “We’re never going back, though.”

“You sound bitter,” Whale says, looking at him. “Why do you like Storybrooke so much?”

“Uh…” Danny pauses, before pointing at the ceiling. “The lights? Electric systems?”

“Running water,” Roni adds jokingly.

“My realm had running water and electricity,” Whale says. “I wasn’t from the Enchanted Forest, but I got swept up in this Curse anyway. I just want to go home.”

“Are you sure?” Roni tilts her head up, hissing loudly as he fastens on the splint tightly. “ _Ow._ ”

“Would you like some painkillers?” Whale questions.

“Ugh, anything, please,” Roni groans, slumping in her seat.

“We’ll get you something,” Whale promises. “Any allergies we should be aware of?”

“Strawberries,” Roni says, “and lactose.”

“No pudding for you then,” the doctor jokes, turning to the nurse and rattling off a dosage of medication. To Roni’s surprise, the nurse curtsies before leaving the room, Whale rolling his eyes before walking to the door, only pausing to ask one more question of Danny. “A query: if you want to stay in Storybrooke, why carry the sword?”

It takes Danny a long moment to come up with a reply and in the end, it’s not even a very good one.

“Why shouldn’t I?”

It’s an open-ended question of an answer, one that doesn’t reveal the true reason, something that Whale notices as he leaves, brow furrowed. Roni looks to Danny, who glances at her.

“Should I have left my sword somewhere else?”

“No,” Roni says quietly. “No, it’s your only defence. Best keep it on hand. You’re not the only one wearing one, anyway – Charming wears his sword.”

“Grandpa is here?” Danny asks, visibly distressed. He clutches his sword tightly and-

_Oh. I didn’t realise._

“That’s his, isn’t it?” Roni sucks in a breath. It’s recognisable, if you know what you’re looking at. _Of course he has it, it makes sense that he does._ “I have to glamour it, or you have to hide it.”

“You were exhausted earlier,” Danny protests. “You can’t do that again.”

“It was two glamours in quick succession. I can do it, I promise,” Roni swears, holding out her hand. Danny hesitates, but obviously, he doesn’t want to lose the last connection he has to his grandparents and so he pulls it out of his belt, handing it to her. Taking it, Roni concentrates, drawing up what little magic she has in reserve. _All I have to do is change the handle._

The sword shimmers in front of her eyes, her head pounding, but the magic changes the curved, golden guard into silver steel, changing it into an average cross-guard. Releasing a breath, Roni hands the sword back eagerly, cracking her back as the magic of Storybrooke drifts across her, being sucked in like a sponge. With so many curses and realms of magic she has visited, her sensitivity is higher than it ever was the first time the Curse was broken.

“You’re really pale,” Danny says, standing up and taking her shoulder. Roni gives him a small smile, shaking her head.

“I’m fine. My arm is just sore.”

Just then, the nurse comes back in with a small tray, pills in a small plastic cup with a glass of water on the side. Regina gratefully takes them, swallowing the pink ovals and washing them down with a grimace.

“Your x-ray results should be back soon,” the nurse says before leaving again.

“Thank-you for worrying over me,” Roni says to Danny, putting her good hand on top of his. “I know this is hard for you.”

“I can deal with this. Why don’t you use magic to heal yourself?”

“There’s not enough in this land, not yet.” Roni closes her eyes, reaching out, feeling it all as it is, shaking her head. “It’s not settled. I can tell you more, later, if you’d like.”

“I don’t know a lot about magic,” Danny admits.

“I’ll teach you,” Roni promises.

Danny nods, before sitting down again. They wait in a comfortable silence for the x-ray results and when they come, Whale explains how he’ll have to put her under for minor surgery. The bone had snapped a few inches from her elbow, splintering in places – small bits of bone too close to larger veins for Whale’s liking. She’d also sprained her arm, though no surgery was needed for that. Roni is fine with it, up until Whale mentions the cost.

“We…we don’t have any money,” Roni admits, glancing at Danny, who stiffens.

“The hospital can work something out later with you, but this has to be done soon, for better healing,” Whale says and that is that. A few hours later, Danny is set up in the waiting room with a pile of magazines and a water-bottle and Roni changes into a hospital gown.

When she goes under, her last lucid thought is about whether Danny will need a snack and when she wakes, it’s to find herself once more in a patient room, Danny at her side, laid out across three chairs, asleep.

“Danny,” she croaks. “Daniel.”

Danny doesn’t wake and she lets herself fall back asleep, too, into nightmares of being pulled through a portal of the Author’s own making.

_“And just write here…‘and the writings of these here pages beneath, become true’.” The Wish Realm Rumplestiltskin flourished his wrists with a jump, giggling._

_Roni looks to the snow-globe, where Henry, Jacinda, Lucy, Rogers and Weaver are trapped. The snow has stopped, disappeared – a condition Roni asked for, when she turned herself in. Rumplestiltskin, at least for once, obliged. Now, they watch from within as King Henry writes for Rumplestiltskin, the Author pen full of squid ink._

_“What did you write?” King Henry goes to flip back a page, to look at the things the Dark One has written, but Rumplestiltskin grabs his wrist, voice flat._

_“That wasn’t the deal, dearie. Write. Then you shall see.”_

_“I want my revenge, but you have written something and I will know what, first,” Henry argues. “What if you have imprisoned Regina, too? I will not have my revenge, if you have.”_

_“Trust me, if I send her somewhere, you’re going with her, little King,” Rumplestiltskin says before letting go of the Wish Henry’s wrist. Roni watches on in silence as Henry does as commanded, the writing glowing before a strange wind begins to swirl through the room, papers fluttering through the air._

_“What did you do?” she demands an answer of the Dark One, who grins at her with pointed teeth._

_“I’m sending you away, so I don’t have to bother with you anymore. That little town of yours…Storybrooke. How do you believe it will fair with two Evil Queen’s on the loose? You’re going to another reality, dearie and not even the power of the Author can bring you back here – it’s written, you see.”_

_“What have you done?” King Henry stands, a book flying into his face as the wind further picks up, “What about my revenge?”_

_A portal begins to appear behind Roni and as she turns around, she hears Rumplestiltskin speak._

_“I told you, little King – if I send her somewhere, you’re going with her. Good luck in the Land Without Magic, Your Majesties!”_

_Then, the portal – black and a maelstrom of nothing – appears, sucking in Roni and King Henry without abandon. Roni’s arm slams into a table as she’s pulled back, a blinding pain shooting through her-._

Roni wakes with a start. She sucks in a breath, feeling the weight of a cast and the stiffness of her elbow. Looking down, she sees a dark blue cast, her elbow encased as well as her arm and wrist. Everything aches and a heart monitor is attached to her index finger, the sun streaming in through the tilted hanging blinds. On his make-shift bed, Danny is on her phone, playing Angry Birds.

“How did you unlock it?” Roni questions groggily. Danny glances her way, eyes wide.

“Oh, I…I guessed. There was a calendar, out in the waiting area and I had a flip through it. It wasn’t so difficult to figure out my own birthday – our calendar’s aren’t so different. You seem like the sentimental type.”

“I do, do I?” Roni raises an eyebrow. It’s true, of course. She _does_ use Henry’s birthday as her password, but that doesn’t make it right that he managed to steal her phone and unlock it. “Ask, next time, please. Did you happen to figure out your actual birthday is in this land?”

“Yeah,” Danny says. “I turn nineteen on the twelfth of November, or thereabouts.”

“Really?” Roni questions, trying to input that date into her mind. This is her _son_ , no matter what kind of incarnation. _November twelfth. November twelfth. Danny’s birthday is on November twelfth._

“Yeah. The doctor came around while you were asleep, told me to give you these when you wake up,” Danny leans up, sitting on his chair properly while kicking the other chairs out of the way, grabbing some papers on the side-table. “Here.”

Roni takes them, wincing at the bills. “Right. It’s not so bad, I think…one thousand for the surgery, meds and anaesthesia, a few hundred for the room…right. No, it’s not too bad. I think I can pay this off.” _I just have to pay Gold a visit and ask for a loan. If I tell him the truth, maybe he’ll be a little more lenient._ “We should check out. Where did my clothes end up?”

“Just over here.”

After getting dressed, jacket slung over her shoulders, Danny holding their two boxes, Roni leads them out the hospital – only to stop still as she sees the ambulance bring in Archie Hopper, face covered in a blanket, the only identifying feature being his red hair. But of course, Roni lived through this, even if it was so long ago.

 _Archie. Mother kidnaps him and leaves a fake body behind, a disguised body. She killed someone, one of my townspeople._ Roni’s eyes are glued to the gurney as it rolls away into the emergency room doors, only a dozen yards from the main entrance.

“Who is that?” Danny questions. A nearby townsperson Roni recognises as a cook form her palace kitchens replies.

“It’s Dr Hopper – Jiminy Cricket. They found him dead in his office.”

“Oh no,” Danny whispers, Roni putting a comforting hand on his shoulder.

“Come this way.” Roni leads him away from the hospital, to a path by the treeline. “Henry- Danny, if I gave you directions, would you be able to take our things to the cabin?”

Danny stiffens. “I don’t want you to leave my side, Your Majesty. No offence meant.”

“No, I get it, but I remember this – my mother is in Storybrooke. This is before anyone knows,” Roni says, “and she pretended to be me last night. Do you remember seeing me?”

“Yes…”

“That wasn’t me,” Roni shakes her head, “That was my mother. She has a better grasp on her magic, because she came through a portal from the Enchanted Forest. She’s at full power and no-one knows she’s here. The Cricket isn’t dead, she kidnapped him. He’s captured, hidden on Captain Hook’s ship.”

The tension in Danny’s shoulders melts away. “He’s not dead. Thanks the gods.”

“No, he isn’t. However, no-one but us knows that and I need to tell someone, which is why I’m sending you away,” Roni takes her phone out of her pocket, which she had retrieved from him earlier.

Getting up a map of Storybrooke, surprised her phone even works, Roni only briefly pauses to check her drop-down menu, surprised at the ‘ _Welcome to Storybrooke!_ ’ message that had popped up sometime during the early hours of the morning, connected to a free wifi sign-in link. She clicks it, surprised to find a genial, dated _‘Welcome to Storybrooke’_ web-page, asking for new users to register.

 _Later,_ Roni thinks when she sees you have to put in an email, going back to the maps, using hotspot – a thing that she’s surprised actually exists, along with the _map_ that’s somehow accessible – to find the cabin and mark it, a back-road lighting up as she asks for directions.

“Here,” she offers the phone to Danny. “It’s an interactive map. You’re the arrow. It’ll lead you to the cabin while I go see the sheriff- the town guards, I mean, about my mother.”

“I think the boxes are going to make it difficult,” Danny says, contrite. Roni eyes them, noting the hand-holds that haven’t been punched in yet.

“Put them down, I know I have a scarf in there…”

Making up a sling mechanism, Roni – using Danny’s two working hands – attaches the long scarves she’d picked up at the shop last night to the boxes, making them like very short satchels. Danny assures her it’s all fine and when he’s set, they start walking, splitting paths when they reach the turning Danny is supposed to follow to get to the cabin.

“Promise me you’ll hide out there,” Roni grasps his arm. “Please, until we can figure out if this reality it the same as the one I know.”

“…I promise,” Danny says after a long moment. “But if you’re not back by sunrise tomorrow, I will make my way into town to find you, starting from where we arrived.”

“That’s fine. Thank-you for swearing,” Roni says, offering him a kiss on his forehead before gently pushing him off on his way, watching him for a minute before heading along the road. The walk to the station is nerve-wracking and strange. People on the street do double-takes at the sight of her, taking steps back before frowning in confusion.

 _The glamour at least does something,_ Roni thinks to herself as she goes past Granny’s, slowing to a halt as Red snits.

“I thought you would have been taken in by now. I saw you last night, going into Archie’s.”

“I think you have the wrong person,” Roni says to the werewolf, showing off her broken arm. “I was at the hospital getting my arm fixed.”

Red frowns, peering at her in confusion before sniffing deeply. Roni’s heart beats double-time, watching the woman come closer, sniffing again and peering closer.

“You’re Regina though, I _know_ you. But you’re not, you’re dressed different and your face…”

“I’m her cousin,” Roni says softly. “I’m told we look very much alike. What do you mean, taken in? I saw Dr Hopper when they brought him in. What happened?”

“Pongo got out, he led me and Emma inside,” Red says, sounding distressed. “He was just lying there. He’s dead. I saw Regina go into his place last night when I was tidying up.”

“That is suspicious,” Roni admits, even knowing the truth – that her mother was impersonating her. “I’m sorry about Dr Hopper, if you really were the one to find him.”

“Me too,” Red says before checking her watch, sighing. “Breaks over. Have a nice day, uh…what did you say your name was, again?”

“Roni,” Roni introduces herself. “You’re Red, right?”

“Yeah, that’s me.” Red glances back at the diner, joking, “Not very regal name there, if you’re really Regina’s cousin.”

“Don’t tell anyone, but I have a longer name,” Roni murmurs, glaring at her in a friendly manner. “I’ll make a pelt out of you if you tell. I’m _just_ Roni, here.”

“Now I see the resemblance,” Red jokes, stepping back with a small wave as she turns to enter the diner again. Roni watches her disappear inside before continuing on, finding herself troubled by her own situation. _Red was there and she **did** see ‘me’. How am I supposed to prove to them it was Cora without evidence?_

Roni remembers that it was unfair, how they _actually_ believed a dog’s testimony over hers. A _dogs_ testimony; and no, she isn’t referring to the wolf. _Pongo is not a reliable source of information. If I go in there and tell them, just **tell** them that it’s Cora, then maybe they’ll believe me._ Roni desperately tries to think of something else – something that could make them believe her. Emma in the future would take her word for it, no question, because she _trusts_ her. But not here. She needs better than just words.

“No-one trusts me here,” she says into the wind. _Not even Danny._ He’s a good boy, her _son_ , but she’s a stranger to him – worse, a stranger that killed his grandparents and stole his mother away. Roni almost laughs at her own thoughts, even in her bitterness. _It sounds like I stole Emma so we could have a torrid affair, or some rubbish like that._ Emma though, Emma in the future – in her original reality – is with Killian Jones.

Roni stops in the middle of the sidewalk.

Killian Jones.

 _Archie is on his ship. Didn’t- wasn’t it Belle who found him there? And then- and then Killian pushed her over the town line and Greg Mendell drove across._ Roni feels her chest constrict. Cora still has to be dealt with and that is another hurdle in itself, but Greg Mendell means something much worse. _Peter Pan. Neverland. Henry’s year in New York._

Someone bumps into her shoulder, knocking her out of her thoughts and jarring her arm. Forcing herself not to whimper, Roni starts walking again, pink velvet ankle boots clicking on the sidewalk. She walks onwards and then turns a corner, walking into the station, slowing as she hears a lack of noise. Going into the main office, all Roni sees are empty cells.

“Where are they?” Roni furrows her brow. She would have thought they’d be here, trying to think up theories-

A door opens behind her and she turns, only to see her younger self walking primly out of the interrogation rooms, Emma’s hand clasped in her own. Roni’s stomach drops and she stumbles forwards, barely managing to question the hand-holding in her head as she calls out.

“Regina.”

Regina stops, turning her head and then turning properly to stare at Roni, just as Snow and David come streaming out. Emma’s eyes widen at the sight of her.

“Woah, déjà vu. Who are you?”

“I’m Roni,” Roni tugs at her jacket nervously, even though she knows it won’t fall off her shoulders. “I- I just heard what happened and Red, she said that she said she saw Regina, though she thought it was _me_ and I told her it wasn’t, but-”

“There!” Regina exclaims, pointing. “I was home all last night, I _told_ you. She looks just like me.”

“Regina, calm down,” Emma orders, stepping forwards, looking Roni straight in the eye. “What’s your name, again? Full name.”

“Roni North.” Roni says, thinking back on her family tree and hoping she gets this right, especially seeing as both Regina and Snow are standing in front of her. “In the Enchanted Forest, I was called Veronique Madelina of the House of Xavier.”

“Excuse me?” Regina looks taken aback, looking her up and down. “No, I’ve never met you before in my _life-_ ”

“For good reason,” Roni interrupts, “I’m Prince Sebastian’s daughter. Bastard daughter, but still, I wasn’t exactly welcome in court. I’m a few years older than you, _mi prima._ ”

“Don’t talk to me in that language,” Regina snaps, making Roni narrow her eyes.

“ _¿Por qué?_ Are you scared of it?”

“No, just…don’t.” Regina crosses her arms and Roni tries to recall her stance on speaking Southern back in this time. _Henry hasn’t spoken a word in over a year. I stopped after he snapped at me._ Roni purses her lips. “Did you kill Archie?”

“No. Did you?”

“No.” Regina says, mulish. “How do we know you aren’t lying?”

“I have an alibi, to be fair,” Roni says, tapping her cast gently. “My son can corroborate that we were walking to the hospital and then I was there up until Archie came in on a stretcher. But I wasn’t here to reunite – I was here to warn you.” Something occurs to her, or rather, a memory resurfaces of when she was young, when one of her cousins called Cora the ‘evil aunt’. Roni makes sure she doesn’t smile. “ _La tía malvada_ is here.”

Her words don’t seem to register for a moment, but then Snow is gasping slightly and Regina pales. “Cora. But she didn’t come through, we were the only ones to-”

“Hot tip: there’s a pirate docked in the harbour, too,” Roni adds, before feeling for her magic again. It’s all settling now – all coming back to her, stronger and better than ever, filling her veins like an old friend, as if she’s finally settled into Storybrooke’s atmosphere. _I can transfer away, now. I can do anything that I normally could._ “I have to go. It’s a long walk home.”

“Wait,” David puts up a hand. “How do we know you didn’t kill Archie?”

“I would never kill the Cricket,” Roni brushes off. “And anyway, I told you, I have an alibi. Just ask Dr Whale. I don’t usually venture into town, but I had to for my arm. My son insisted.”

“You have a son too?” Regina mumbles, eyebrows knitting together.

“I do,” Roni confirms, “And he’s waiting for me. If I’m not back by sunrise tomorrow, he’ll come in swinging. He found a sword for himself.”

“Sunrise?” Emma questions, “Doesn’t he have a phone?”

“He has mine,” Roni pauses, tilting her head. “Well. I could phone my cell, I suppose.” _Though, he’s never picked up a phone before. He might not understand how to answer it._

“Do you mind stepping in here, so I can get an official statement?” Emma questions, motioning to the interrogation rooms. “It’s just, we _did_ get an official statement from a witness saying they saw Regina, but you do look a _lot_ alike.”

“I don’t mind and I suppose I have all day and night to return.” Roni licks her lips, feeling her stomach clench. _When was the last time I ate?_ Stepping forwards, Roni enters, pausing as Emma follows her, motioning for her to go through into the room past the one-way glass. Once inside, Roni feels a certain sense of déjà vu, but sits down calmly.

“I’ll just ask you some general questions,” Emma says, taking a notepad out of her back-pocket, standing rather than sitting with her. “You full name?”

“Roni North.”

“Is that short for anything? Any middle names?”

“Veronique. Here, it’s Veronica, but…don’t call me that.” Roni grimaces. It’s a disservice to her family name, changing it like that – Veronique was Queen Consort to King Xavier, her grandfather and she was loved by all her grandchildren very much. “Veronica Gabrielle North. Roni, for short. Veronique Madelina in the Enchanted Forest. I’d rather you not mention that to most, though. I’m just Roni.”

Emma gives her a small look, eyes squinty, before she moves on. _Lie detector,_ Roni frowns. _But I wasn’t lying, not technically – my full name is Regina Sofia Constanza Veronique and here, I’m Regina Madeline Mills._

“Date of birth? Social security number?”

“Age is debatable, here and I doubt our numbers would show up in the system,” Roni sidesteps.

“Address?”

“None,” Roni replies. Emma gives her a frown.

“You’re homeless?”

Roni shrugs, looking at her nails, avoiding the Saviour’s worried gaze. “I’ll be sorting out something soon. Gold does loans and suchlike. I should be able to find somewhere eventually.”

“Right…” Emma mutters, clicking her pen a couple of times. “Just because you said that and because you mentioned a son: any dependants?”

“Daniel is nineteen in November, so not technically, but he still does live with me.” Roni pauses, thinking rapidly, “If you have any openings in the department, he might want a job with you. He did something like peacekeeping work, in the old world.”

“He’s welcome to come along,” Emma promises. “Do you have a phone number or any way we can contact you later?”

“Yes,” Roni says, giving Emma her number. Unease flows through her, however, as Emma calls it. “What are you doing?”

“Just checking to make sure it’s not a dud number. To be honest, you’re not giving me good vibes. I’ve never seen you around before and I think if there was someone who looked like Regina walking around, you would have been lynched at some point already,” Emma says, putting the phone on speaker. It rings for a stressful few seconds before the line clicks open.

“Hello, is this Daniel North?” Emma questions. There’s a crackling sound and a faint _hello_ , before she speaks again. “I can’t hear you. This is Sheriff Swan, is that Daniel North?”

“… _yes, that’s me. What do you want?_ ” Danny answers, sounding extremely unsure.

“I’ve got your mom here at the station. I’m just calling to confirm your address and phone number.”

“ _We don’t have an address,_ ” Danny says, “ _We’re camping in the woods right now. I’m sorry, but could I speak to my…my mother, please?_ ”

“She’s right here,” Emma says, raising her eyebrow at Roni.

“Danny,” Roni clears her throat, increasing her volume. “Danny, hang up and don’t answer any calls from this number for the next few hours, please, or any other phone.”

“ _How do I hang up on this?_ ”

“Red button,” Roni says, Emma rolling her eyes as he hangs up as told. “I don’t appreciate you bringing my son into this.”

“You said he was with you last night, out in the corridor,” Emma huffs, “Excuse me for wanting to confirm that.”

“If you want to speak to him, I want a lawyer present.”

“And not one for yourself now?” Emma challenges. Roni raises her chin, looking at her coolly.

“Miss Swan, if I needed a lawyer, I would ask for one. I know my rights. You may ask me questions, anything you like and I will answer them, up to a point. However, my son is off-limits. He’s unfamiliar with the legal system this world follows.”

“Right,” Emma taps her pen against her notepad again before sitting down across from her, finally. “Where were you between the hours of nine and one, last night?”

“I was walking with my son to the hospital to get my arm fixed,” Roni says.”

“What did you do to it?”

“I was flung into a table,” Roni says shortly, bristling at the memory. “Hard. My son was hit in the head, he had to get stitches.”

Emma pauses, “Was anyone else involved in the incident?”

“Yes,” Roni says, thinking of the Wish Realm Rumplestiltskin giggling in the background as they were pulled through the portal. “We don’t have a car or other mode of transportation- well, we didn’t. I’ve got enough magic now to teleport around, I think.” She flexes her hand, feeling the magic warm her bones, lip tugging at the corner. “So we had to walk. I think we got to the hospital around midnight, or maybe before that. I’m not good at judging time.”

“Is anyone?” Emma asks rhetorically, noting something down. “Can anyone else, other you’re your son, confirm where you were last night before you got to the hospital?”

“No,” Roni answers.

Emma leans back in her chair, thinking for a few moments. “Why did you come here today?”

“To warn you about Cora,” Roni says, “and Hook.”

“But _why?_ Because you heard a rumour that Regina was being questioned?” Emma raises an eyebrow. “It doesn’t really match up.”

Roni squirms in place, “I saw her. Cora, I mean. Walking up Main Street.” Which is true, Roni just hadn’t realised it was Cora. “Daniel can corroborate that, if you want him to come in, with a lawyer.”

Emma grimaces, rubbing her forehead. “Do you know anything about what happened while I was away these past two weeks? That I was in the Enchanted Forest with Mary-Margaret – that we ran into her.”

“Who? Cora?”

“Yeah, pain in the ass,” Emma says shortly. “How did you know her?”

“She’s family. We’ve met,” Roni says, pausing, “Though I doubt she remembers the bastards, unless they got in her way. King Xavier’s children upheld his belief that bastards should never be legitimised. She’s cruel. My other cousins called her the Evil Aunt.” Roni is silent for a moment, speaking without thought. “It wasn’t a secret that she used magic on Princess Regina, far from it. She scared everyone away from her, to make her alone. Our cousins – the legitimate ones, I mean – some didn’t care and paid the price. I know for a fact that she arranged the deaths of Matias and Julieta. They were kind and Julieta would have been a just queen, after Manuel passed on his title. Cora is dangerous in all the worst ways.”

“…that’s horrid,” Emma mutters. “How old were they?”

“Julieta was thirteen. Matias was eight, I think,” Roni shakes her head. She can still remember hearing the news from her father, seven years old and shaking, because she’d heard her mother say that Julieta and Matias wouldn’t be around anymore, for her, _for_ _you, Regina, darling, so you can be Queen._ She investigated later, when Leopold was away in another kingdom and Regina had that power. The assassin was one of the first people she had publicly executed, according to the laws of the White Kingdom.

“We’ll have to keep Henry far, far away from her,” Emma mutters and Roni looks up, because this is the first mention of her young, ten-year old son. Seeing her look, Emma expands upon her point, “Henry is Regina’s son, Cora’s grandson through adoption. I’m his birth-mother.”

“I’ve heard,” Roni says. “Is it all true?”

“That I’m the Saviour? Who the hell knows, but I did break the Curse with Regina,” Emma says ever-so casually. Roni blinks.

“ _With_ Regina?”

“Yeah, have a problem with that?” Emma raises an eyebrow and- and this is _news_. Roni blinks rapidly, not understanding.

“I thought- I heard that it was Henry. Henry who managed to get you to break it.”

“It’s complicated,” Emma winces, “but there was this cursed apple strudel that Regina made to make me sleep, because she knew that we could break the Dark Curse. We fell in love – it was a painful ride, but we do. Love each other, I mean. Henry figured out that it was poisoned and threatened to eat it, so Regina did instead. She died, in the hospital. I brought her back to life and broke the Dark Curse while I was at it and…yeah. It’s complicated.”

“Sounds like it,” Roni murmurs, stomach rolling. _Emma and Regina broke the Dark Curse._ All of a sudden she’s thinking of her Emma – her Emma, who married Killian and had a baby. Emma, who trusts her without question, who believes in her and _we could have been so much more,_ she realises. She clenches her fist, before wishing she was somewhere else, alone so she can scream at the sky and Roni doesn’t realise she’s using magic until she’s already teleported away.

“Shit,” she swears under her breath as she appears in front of the cabin, the large duck pond rippling gently. Like that wasn’t suspicious at _all_ , disappearing right after Emma’s story about her magical lesbian love story. _They’ll think I’m gathering information or homophobic. Then, they’ll try to find us and realise there’s no records of either of us._

“Your Majesty!” Henry’s voice- _Danny’s_ voice, echoes across the pond. Roni looks and sees him fishing with a modern line and reel, rod swaying slightly in the wind. “I found the cabin!”

“I can see that!” Roni says, before walking around the pond to him, following a dirt track that kicks up dust onto her boots. But that conversation is still swirling through her mind. _Emma and Regina. Together – in **love**._ Roni knows she has to tell Danny, he’ll find out later from someone who isn’t her otherwise, but it’s hard to even comprehend-

But it isn’t. It isn’t hard at all. It even makes _sense._ Saying ‘Henry’s two mothers are in a relationship’ is a whole less complicated than ‘Henry’s two mothers are friends and one is married to a pirate who takes on the role of step-father’. What they’ve been through together, as well, even just in Roni’s reality…

“You’re brooding,” Danny notices as she sits down beside him on the convenient wooden bench. Between them is her phone and she picks it up, unlocking it to find Emma’s number in the call history. She saves it under _Sheriff Swan_ , trying to keep her distance. “Who was that, who called me on your device?”

“Your other mother.”

Danny stills. “Really?”

“Of a sort,” Roni murmurs. “The main authority in this land is my other self, the Mayor. Then, there’s Law Enforcement – though even the Mayor answers to the law. Emma Swan is the sheriff and your grandfather is her deputy. No-one else works at the station with them, currently. I mentioned you, when I was there, if you wanted to work with them. It would give you something to do, something you might be familiar with.”

“I don’t know what I want. Why are you upset, though?”

Roni spares him a glance. “In this world, the Dark Curse was broken differently. I consumed the sleeping curse, rather than Henry. Apparently, here, Regina and Emma are in love – enough that Emma was able to wake her up with True Love’s kiss.”

“Oh.” There’s a moment of silence. “Do you love her in your world, too?”

“No. Yes. She was my best friend. It didn’t quite occur to me, back then,” Roni mulls it over. “Maybe I would have been romantically involved with her, had we not been so distracted by men; not that I regret what romance I had in my life. Robin died though – so did Killian, actually, as well.”

“Your life seems interesting,” Danny says, “The more I hear of it, the more I want to know.”

“I’ll tell you some things, but not all. Mainly because I’ve forgotten a lot of the details,” Roni admits. “We need to get our stories straight. Eventually, someone’s going to ask us questions.”

“We have to lie,” Danny says, before picking up his rod, standing to reel it in, grinning as he brings up a fish. Roni leans back out of the way as Danny opens a blue icebox by his feet, unlatching it from the hook with ease, showing. “I knew there were fish in there.”

“You can’t have been doing this for long,” Roni says. “How long did it take you to get here?”

“Not long, once I started jogging,” Danny says, closing the box. “These shoes are comfortable beyond belief, Your Majesty.”

“You don’t have to call me that, you know,” Roni replies.

“…I know,” he says, after a moment. “Anyway, I was hungry and the fishing equipment was just inside the door. I dug up some earthworms for bait. Want to start up a fire, to cook it?”

“There should be a kitchen inside the cabin,” she says, “and a fireplace, if it isn’t working. No need to set the forest alight.”

“I know how to set up a fire,” Danny argues.

“I’m sure you do – just do it in the fireplace.” Roni says, settling back into the bench as Danny puts his line out again. Clicking through her phone – taking note of how her battery is down to sixteen percent – she sets up a new email through Google under _northwitch.RN_ and making one for Danny while she’s at it, under _northking.DHN._

Turning off her phone and tucking it into her jacket pocket, Roni takes the time to talk to Danny about phones, emails and the postal service. Danny asks many questions – like what the internet is, how do phones work, is everything from the ‘electric’ she talked about and how banking works in the Land Without Magic – and Roni answers all of them. Meanwhile, he catches more and more fish, until there are six in his icebox, putting away his gear responsibly when he finishes.

“Now, kitchen safety,” Roni explains how the gas cooker works and the electric lighting, getting him to go to the breaker box behind the door to turn everything on. There are cleaning supplies under the sink and she walks through wiping down the kitchen with him after hanging up her jacket – a close call happening when Danny tries to taste the citrus-scented bleach. Roni nearly has a heart attack at that and shows him the label on the back with the warnings, watching him pale at the death-by-bleach warnings.

“It’s poison,” he nearly drops the plastic bottle and Roni just shakes her head, using it to wash the grimy sink, letting it sit as she cleans the kitchen utensils with washing up liquid and disinfectant spray.

“Chemicals are dangerous and some can be fatal, so yes, it’s poison. Unless it’s marked for eating, don’t eat it. If there’s one thing this land is good at, it’s labelling.”

Danny edges clear of the sink, where the open cupboard underneath shows a bucket of different bottles cleaners. Roni doesn’t roll her eyes, still shaken by the fact that _her son nearly drank bleach._ She finishes cleaning the kitchen soon after, making sure everything is away properly before letting Henry- _Danny,_ at the kitchen knives, which she sharpens and passes over safely, happy that there’s at least one thing he handles without fear – though she does have to watch him gut the first fish, just to make sure.

“I know what I’m doing,” he says, even making use of the fish knife to take the skin off. Vaguely happy that Danny’s fine, Roni inspects the rest of the cabin, thankful that the water is still running and that it’s clear, rather than brown from rust or otherwise discoloured. _We won’t drink it yet, though,_ she thinks, sniffing deeply as Danny starts to cook two of the fish for their breakfast. Roni has to say – she’s not looking forwards to it, not when her usual fare is an omelette, porridge or a bowl of cocoa pops.

 _I am never going to live that down,_ she thinks, knowing that her Emma would laugh herself silly, knowing Regina Mills was eating junk food every day for breakfast. Roni swears to herself never to mention it to anyone – just like her tattoo.

The cabin itself is small, despite the large living area. There’s a couple of chairs, a fireplace, a desk, a dining table and a few cabinets in the front area, with an old, large, dusty carpet set over the wooden board floors. The rooms in the back – the kitchen, a bathroom, bedroom, a storage cupboard and a small corridor to the back door, respectively – make up about as much space as the front room. It’s tight. Roni can’t imagine living here with Danny very long before it got cramped.

Getting the fire going does a lot to warm the cabin up, however and using her magic is nice, after being cursed to be without it again.

“Breakfast!” Danny sets two plates down at the table along with cutlery, drawing back a chair for her. Roni offers him a small smile from across the room, coming over and sitting down. “Or maybe lunch, judging by the sun. I found some salt in the cupboards, so it shouldn’t be too bad.”

“Let’s hope for the best,” Roni jokes, but the fish is good and she says so, congratulating him on the simple meal. “I’m going to go out again, to visit your grandfather.”

Danny pauses for a second, fork halfway between his mouth and his plate. It lowers slightly. “You mean the Dark One.”

“I can get us a proper house,” Roni says. “I could even get a bar – a tavern. I ran one in Hyperion Heights, when I was cursed. I enjoyed it and it’s good money, if you can get enough regular customers.”

“…you want to run a _bar,_ ” Danny says, sceptical. “You don’t want to run the town? Try for the governing position?”

“I’ve done that already. Running the bar was…not cathartic, but it was good.” Roni says, picking a bone out of her mouth with a wince. “I was lonely, when I was cursed. I was supposed to run it with my sister, in my memories, though we had a big fight and she left…but when I woke up, I just fell in love with it all over again, but as _me_.”

Ideas fill her. Aesop’s Tables was definitely in a good location, set just off Main Street near the harbour in one of the old buildings. Regina liked going there, rather than the Rabbit Hole and generally, she always had a good time when she went out with Emma and Snow. She even went out once with Princess Avigail – Kathryn Nolan – and her secretary, Annie, who never went back to her Enchanted Forest identity. Aesop’s Tables only appeared when Gideon did, though, taken over by the owner of the Rabbit Hole after he left – which leaves the building itself untaken, unrenovated and unestablished.

 _Roni’s,_ she thinks, wondering if she could get a neon sign over the door, paint the inside walls black with some wacky painted designs and mirrors. _Drunk people are hilarious when you put them in front of a mirror._

“You weren’t a queen anymore,” Danny says, almost to himself. “Like I’m no longer a king. If I work at this…station, though, with law enforcement here, I won’t have time to watch you.”

Roni sighs. “Watch me?”

“You still killed my grandparents,” Danny says, “and I know you’ve explained your logic, but the fact remains that you made a mistake. This is not your realm and you shouldn’t be comfortable here. You need to be on your guard.”

“Oh,” Roni startles, “I thought-”

“That I meant my revenge?” Danny interrupts, shaking his head. “You’re the only one I know here. As much as it pains me to let it go, I will, for our sake here in this strange reality. We need to stick together.”

“I agree, though maybe once you understand this world better, you’ll want your own space.”

“I’ve had my own space for too long. Loneliness is what drove me to seek out my Rumplestiltskin,” Danny stubbornly shakes his head. “Excuse me if it seems strange, especially seeing as you were my enemy.”

“No- _no_ , sweetheart,” Roni reaches over the table with her good hand, cupping his cheek, smiling at him. “No. I’m here and I’m not going anywhere. You won’t be alone again, I promise.”

Danny visibly hesitates before he nods, Roni bopping his nose before getting back to the remains of her fish.

“This _is_ really good, you know.”

The former king flushes slightly. “Thank-you.”

Roni raises a forkful of fish as if it were a glass, “To a new life. Together.”

Danny copies her movement. “To a new life.” They don’t clink forks, but they do eat, finishing their meal and tidying up afterwards, Roni finding an icebox full of beers in the back. Picking out two bottles of Fosters, she brings them through, chucking one to Danny as she flips her lid off with a practiced motion.

“If you were any younger, I’d say no if you asked to have one of these, but internationally, I think eighteen is the majority for drinking, so…there you go.” Roni sips her beer, smiling slightly as it slips down her throat. Danny eyes the bottle dubiously, before taking off the lid with ease, trying it out. “What do you think?”

Danny tilts his head, before having some more. “It’s good.”

“I don’t want to try out the water yet,” Roni says. “I need to find a way to test the PH levels, to make sure it’s drinkable.”

“I don’t know what these… _PH_ levels are,” Danny replies.

“I’ll teach you,” Roni promises, before sitting back in one of the armchairs, fire crackling away as Danny sits opposite her.

She thinks of this world, this reality where Peter Pan hasn’t gotten his hands of her son yet, where Cora has yet to die. She thinks of Henry and Elsa, of Zelena and Robyn, of Robin Hood and the Merry Men and of the future her son had, with Ella and Lucy. She thinks of Emma Swan and she thinks of Regina Mills, whom Emma Swan broke the Dark Curse with in this reality. But most importantly, she thinks of Danny, the boy in front of her who barely knows how to work a phone but can fish for a few hours and cook her brunch.

 _I’m going to do right by him,_ Roni thinks, _I’m going to make up for what I did to him, with my mistakes. I swear it._


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roni makes a deal with Rumplestiltskin and new relationships are formed.

The pawnshop is, as per usual, a place that makes Roni’s hackles draw up. Maybe it’s because of the memories she has of things that happened here, or maybe it’s just Rumplestiltskin. Shivering slightly, she walks up to the front counter, waiting silently. She can hear him in the back as he walks through, cane clicking against the hardwood floor. When Gold steps through, he stops, looking at her strangely.

“Are you having a mid-life crisis?”

“No,” Roni says. “I’m not her.”

“And that explains everything,” he says, coming forwards to stand opposite her, on the other side of the glass countertop. Roni scans it almost thoughtfully, pausing at the sight of Belle’s chipped cup and then again upon seeing Anna’s wishing star necklace. “See anything you like?”

“I heard around town that you deal in real estate or at least loans,” Roni addresses. “Would this happen to be true?”

“To whom am I speaking?” Gold replies, tilting his head. Roni pauses.

“Roni. Yes, I’m related to Regina, no, we don’t know each other, yes, I know that I look like her, no, I’ve never tried tricking people into thinking I’m her.” _All very true statements and I’ve never had to trick anyone into thinking that I am me, either._

“Do you get asked those questions a lot?” he asks humorously, before questioning, “What kind of real estate are you after?”

“There’s a place just off Main Street. Parts of it have already been renovated – there’s a giant number one on the side. I’m also looking for a place to live.”

“Troubles in paradise?” Gold asks, turning to limp across to a filing cabinet, opening the middle drawer and taking out a folder. “Number one, Harbour Lane. A very imaginative name. It’s part of the old factory- well, _old_ being relative considering how fake the town is.” He opens up the folder for her to see and Roni skims the details. “Two floors, with running electricity and water, though they’ve never actually been on, so you’d have to get a contractor in if there were any problems.”

“Is the second floor habitable as an apartment?” Roni questions, wondering if that could work instead of buying two separate buildings.

“It could be. I’m willing to part with the deed for this property for one hundred thousand, seeing how much disrepair it’s in. That includes the planning permission, notes on infrastructure and other legalities.”

Roni’s heart drops to her stomach, but she doesn’t let it affect her face. “Is there anything you’d take rather than cash?”

“What do you plan to do with it?” he yet again avoids answering one of her questions.

“I want to open my own bar,” Roni says, before repeating herself. “Is there anything you’d take rather than cash?”

Gold scrutinises her. “What have you to offer?”

Roni, in turn, looks him over. This reality in unfamiliar to her, yes, but Rumplestiltskin is the same scheming bastard as always. She smiles, though, as she realises she does have something – hopefully. Considering Danny’s parentage, however, it seems more than likely the trend remains.

“Baelfire.”

In an instant, Gold’s face changes. Fear, anger – settling on the latter. He slams his hand on the counter, glaring.

“What do you know?”

“I know about Peter Pan, too,” she says, which is a mistake on her part, she figures out as soon as Rumple’s hand lifts, choking her in mid-air. He disappears, materialising behind her, letting up on the choking, only to bring his stupid dagger to her neck. Roni tries and fails to tamp down her annoyance. “Really?”

“Who are you really? I can sense that glamour on your face – if I ripped it off, who would I find?” he hisses in her ear.

“Regina,” she says, “Regina Mills, you ingrate. A _much_ more evil version of you sent my son and I here, preventing us from every being returned home.”

“Care to prove your own words?” he whispers. Roni flinches as he pushes her up against the counter, turning her around and ripping the glamour off her face. He stares for a long, hard moment before stepping back, knife still bared against her throat. “Explain. Now.”

“It’s a long story. Want me to give you the Cliffs Notes?”

“Just _tell_ me,” he glares.

Roni grits her teeth. “This is a different reality. I have no way to know whether or not it’s the same, which is why I thought to check with _you_. Now put away the dagger, before someone sees.”

“Why do you care about the dagger?” he questions. “And why should I believe you?”

“You’re _such_ hard work, you know that, Weaver?” Roni mutters, wincing at her own words. “Shouldn’t Belle be around to temper you?”

“Belle never got swept up in the Curse,” Gold then says, Roni frowning at his reply.

“Really? I’m sorry.”

“Why are you sorry?” he asks, “She was out of range with her wife. A good thing – who knows what Regina might have cooked up for her?”

“Belle’s _what?_ ” Roni’s eyes widen. “Wait, you mean, you and Belle never…”

He frowns. “Me and Belle never what?”

“…oh my, it’s not just Emma and other me,” Roni whispers. “I thought there were only minor changes. You and Belle…that’s not a minor change. Are she and her wife True Loves?”

“They certainly love each other very much,” Gold takes the dagger away from her neck, holding onto it tightly by his side. “Mulan and Belle are well suited. They help protect those in the Enchanted Forest, a wasteland though it is now, apparently and filled with ogres besides.”

 _Mulan – she was in love with Aurora, poor girl._ Roni can’t help a small smile. _At least she’s happy in this reality._ “What about you? Do you have anyone?”

“That’s a rather personal question, _Roni._ Why that name? Why not call yourself ‘Regina’, rather than keep up the sham?”

“Because Roni is my name,” she says, “I was put under the Dark Curse for what seemed like the millionth time and that’s who I became. You were Detective Weaver. Things were a mess – the last thing that happened before I came here, your Wish Realm self trapped you, the Wish Realm version of Hook and my son and his family in a snow-globe.”

“This is ludicrous.”

“I know it sounds ridiculous,” Roni sighs, rubbing the bridge of her nose. “This reality isn’t so different that you know who the Author is, do you? Does Henry even have his Book?”

“Aye, the boy has his storybook,” Gold says, peering at her. “Who is the Author?”

“The writer of that storybook,” Roni says. “He’s currently trapped, for good reason, cursed only to record rather than create. Unless this reality is different, of course. In my world, Henry grew up and became the new Author. He had a magical Pen that used squid ink. He could write worlds into existence and a Wish Realm version of you tricked the Wish Realm version of _Henry_ into trapping the both of _us_ here, in _this_ reality.”

“This is ludicrous,” Gold repeats, voice quieter than before. “Why do you want the building? Why not ask for my help to get home, instead?”

“Because there’s no way home,” Roni says, swallowing a lump in her throat. “You’re the master of contracts. If you wrote a story about your enemies being trapped in another land, with every word to become the truth with the stroke of a pen, would you leave any loopholes allowing us to return?”

“Depends on the loophole,” he replies. “I’ll strike a deal with you. You will tell me the entire history of your life and any other that you know and in return, I shall point out the differences, if there _are_ any and the building will be yours, free of charge, along with another property of your choice.”

Roni narrows her eyes. “What else do you want? That’s too lenient. I know you, nearly all your evolutions and only the selfless one looking out his family asked for nothing.”

“Family?” Gold questions, but Roni stays silent. A long, long moment passes and then his dagger is waving in front of her face and she feels her glamour restore itself. “You’re right, of course. I want favours.”

“How many?”

“Let’s say…five. If you really _are_ Regina from another reality, then I want you under my thumb,” he says and _this_ is Rumplestiltskin, the ruthless, cut-throat man that was her teacher. Roni grins viciously.

“My privacy, too. You keep every word I say on these subjects under lock and key. Every secret of mine you give away, you lose a favour and you _tell_ me when you do, because I know you will, eventually.”

His smile is all teeth as they shake on it.

* * *

Roni walks out of the pawnshop with a deal and a sizeable loan, meant to be paid back over the next five years with a two percent rise of per-annum interest. The deeds to 1 Harbour Lane and the old Zimmer household – claimed by Gold long before the brother and sister were discovered to be living alone – are waiting in a new filing cabinet, ready to be claimed as soon as Roni sits down with gold for a long, _long_ chat.

Stopping off at the bank, she manages to get an immediate slot booked so as to make a new bank account, marking 1 Harbour Lane as her address. There are a few worrying moments, including how Roni has no form of ID until she creates a facsimile of a Storybrooke drivers license under the table after ‘taking it out of her pocket’. Roni uses the social security number she had in Seattle, noting the bankers odd head tilt as she types it into her computer, but thankfully the banker doesn’t seem to care too much – she gets more distracted by the cheque that Mr Gold had written for Veronica North.

“You must have been good friends in the Enchanted Forest,” the banker squeaks.

“I made a deal, one that I can repay,” Roni replies calmly, even though her knee bobs up and down rapidly. Once the cheque is cashed in, Roni summons the paperwork the hospital left her and brings it up out from under the table, the banker sighing a little as she eyes it.

Roni watches the numbers change on the computer screen as she bills it, remembering her time in Seattle living on less than fifty dollars a week for food and personal items, all other money going to pay bills. _Victoria Belfrey – always trying to steal my bar out from under me, to push me out of town._ For once, she’s thankful. If she were just Regina Mills, she’d have no idea how to scrimp and save like she knows that she’s going to have to do now, so as much money as she can keep goes back to Gold as soon as possible.

After her business at the bank finishes, Roni takes out some hard cash and does a small grocery run, sending her shopping bags straight to the cabin where – hopefully – Danny will put the freezer items in the cold box. Roni hopes he’s sensible enough to realise how you unpack food and isn’t deficit in basic tasks from being a monarch – gods know she was, when Storybrooke first unfolded all those years ago.

Then, after that, she goes to the local tech shop and buys a new phone charges, two laptops and the newest phone on sale – which is a Samsung Galaxy SII, getting a contract rather than top-up. Like the groceries, she sends them to the cabin.

“Hey! Roni!” she hears someone call her name, which is unexpected to say the least. Turning on the pavement, Roni blinks at the sight of Red jogging up to her, taking her headphones out, grinning at her. “How are you? Granny gave me the rest of the day off.”

“I’m…good,” Roni says.

“You look it – nice arms,” Red grins, reaching over to poke them. Roni gives her an amused look.

“Are you hitting on me?”

“Oh yeah,” Red nods, leaning up against a nearby lamp-post. “How often do you work out?”

“Usually, every few days,” Roni replies neutrally. Red, standing in front of her, seems like the same old Red – but she isn’t. She’s not the Red that Roni knows, she’s a veritable _stranger._ A stranger who likes to flirt with her, it seems. “You?”

“The wolf keeps me pretty fit,” Red shrugs, “I have too much energy. I got let off today because I’m too hyped up. This shit with Archie is just…you’d think it would sap away at me, but I’m just so full of adrenaline.”

“It’ll pass,” Roni murmurs. “Has anything happened?”

“In what? The last few hours?” Red shrugs. “Regina came around, thanked me for getting her taken in for questioning. I said sorry. It was awkward. I think she might have mentioned you, though. You were out last night?”

“I was. I had to get my arm seen to. I saw my aunt, which was why I went in,” Roni says, wondering if Red is in a chatty mood today. The least she can do is try to help repair her younger self’s reputation – which would happen, if Red told this is Leroy.

“Your aunt…you mean, Regina’s mother? Cora?” Red frowns, before shaking her head. “She must have come through after them. That’s _awesome_.”

“It really isn’t,” Roni says in a defeatist tone.

Red grimaces. “Yeah, it isn’t. But at least I met you – we should go out some time.”

“Where to? The Rabbit Hole?” Roni snorts, Red reaching out to poke her shoulder.

“I used to live there during the Curse, practically. I know it _really_ well. Enough to get free drinks. What do you say?”

Roni gives an amused chuckle, shaking her head. “I’ll get back to you on that. I’m trying to set up shop here, properly and honestly? It’s a lot more stress than it’s worth.”

“All the more reason to come out with me,” Red encourages, before standing up straight and coming in close, kissing her cheek. “See you round, Roni.”

“You’re not even going to ask for my number?” Roni looks up at the monstrously tall woman, heels not doing much for her today in the face of Red’s long legs. Red smiles brightly.

“You’d give it to me?”

“Now, I didn’t say _that_ , however maybe if you asked, I might,” Roni teases, reaching up into Red’s ponytail for the pen still tucked into it. “My phone’s flat, unfortunately, so we’ll have to do this the old-fashioned way.”

“Ooh, hand or arm?” Red says, rolling up her sleeve. Roni doesn’t answer her, awkwardly writing down her cell-number, Red holding rock-still. It’s difficult to manoeuvre with only one arm available, though luckily, Roni is ambidextrous. Once she’s written her number down in blue, the pen is taken from her, Red writing down her number just over Roni’s wrist. “There. Now you don’t have an excuse.”

“I have a son,” Roni says, not sure whether or not she mentioned him last time they talked. Red pauses, but bravely jumps into the topic.

“How old?”

“Nineteen in November,” Roni recites. “The twelfth.”

“That’s ages away, yet,” Red says, before putting the pen back in her hair. “I’m getting a little jumpy, now, so I’m going to run – literally. Text me when your phone’s charged?”

“I promise,” Roni says, before watching Red start jogging down Main Street, picking up speed slowly. When she turns a corner, Roni starts meandering back towards Gold’s, stopping in at Granny’s for a coffee.

Waiting at the counter, Roni does see the split-second pause Granny takes, watching her adjust her glasses before stepping closer.

“Yes?”

“Could I get two takeaway coffees, please? And a donut.”

Granny raises an eyebrow. “Sure. What kind of coffee?”

“Americano.”

“You’ll have to speak English, here,” Granny says, before waiting patiently. Roni falters for a moment, before remembering what she used to call it here in Storybrooke.

“Two black coffees?”

“Two takeaway black coffees, coming up,” she says, before turning to her machine. Roni glances at the patrons of the diner, catching sight of Leroy and Astrid in one booth, Snow in another, sitting alone with marking and a pot of tea. Roni watches for a while, then forces herself to stop looking as Granny sets down her coffee cups in front of her. “What donut?”

“I don’t mind, so long as it’s not got any jam in it,” Roni says, wrinkling her nose. Granny chuckles, before taking out a pink frosted donut, putting it in a paper bag. Roni hands over the correct amount of change necessary, thanking the woman before leaving with her purchases, balancing the coffee cups on top of each other and holding onto her donut with the ends of her fingers. Once she’s certain no-one is about to bump into her, she heads across to Gold’s.

Once inside the musty old shop once more, Roni peers into the back room, where Gold is repairing a watch. He motions her in with a flick of his fingers, barely looking away from his watch. Roni sets down her bounty, passing him his.

“What is it?”

“Black coffee. I only got one donut though,” Roni says, sitting across from him. “So, should I start from the beginning?”

“As far back as you can remember,” he says, not touching the beverage she’d brought him.

Roni nods, taking a deep breath, starting with a general outline of her life – that she grew up in Prince Henry’s estate with her mother and father. She tells him of Matias and Julieta’s assassinations, of her mother using magic to keep her in line, of her father’s cowardice when it came to facing Cora. To her own surprise, she gets through the story of her teenage affair with Daniel without cracking or even feeling much pain. It’s been so long since it all happened.

She tells Gold of her saving Snow, of being forcibly engaged to Leopold and Daniel’s death. She tells him of pushing her mother through his looking glass and that her marriage was a farce and loses track of herself for a moment, hand clenching around the coffee cup.

“You killed him, didn’t you?” Gold prompts.

“Technically, it was Sidney. He was a genie, before he put himself in my mirrors.”

That, of course, happens to be the first change Gold recognises. “Sidney Glass is a woman.”

Roni blinks in surprise, eyebrows rising. “Say what, now?”

“Sidney is a woman,” Gold repeats, amused. “I have a feeling that your life is exactly like our Regina’s – it’s simply the people around you that have changed. Though, I do believe in this reality, you and Sidney had something of an affair.”

Roni shivers, making a face. “Why? He’s utterly obsessed with me, in my reality, even however many years later.”

“A trait they share. This Regina, however…what are your preferences, Roni?” Gold questions, sitting up straight in his chair, cracking his shoulders.

“If you’re asking if I like women, then yes,” Roni says, “but I haven’t been in a relationship with any since Maleficent, back in the Enchanted Forest.”

“…interesting,” Gold squints at her. “You became my pupil, during your marriage to the king?”

“Yes. You tried to make me kill that horse – I crushed the heart of that woman, instead.”

“I manipulated you.” Gold says plainly. “You’ve gotten better at noticing, I see.”

“Oh yes,” Roni gives him a fake smile, before digging into her donut, trying to think of significant events to compare. “Hansel and Gretel – Ava and Nicholas Zimmer?”

“Miss Swan reunited them with their father before the Curse broke,” Gold confirms.

Roni swallows her mouthful. “Frankenstein?”

“Aye.”

“And Jefferson – I trapped him in Wonderland.”

“Oh yes.”

“Tinkerbell, showing me my soulmate after I fall off my balcony?”

Gold pauses. “I’ve never heard of you having a soulmate, but I’ve heard that name: the fairy who was banished from the order for stealing dust.”

Roni frowns, “Her wings were taken, in my reality. Is that the same thing?”

“No…this ‘Tinkerbell’ doesn’t go by that name any longer, however. I know not what it is, but she is no longer the fairy she once was,” Gold shrugs. “Take that how you will. If you end up telling Regina of your tale, perhaps you can ask her if it happened.”

 _Never happening,_ Roni swears. “Right.”

She talks of going to Maleficent, watching Gold nod along, then goes on to describe the beginning of her war with Snow, taking the Huntsman’s heart and terrorising those that oppose her rule.

“You were a conqueror.”

“I was their rightful queen by marriage,” Roni argues, “They liked me before I blamed Leopold’s death on Snow.”

She talks and talks and truly, there’s not much Gold says is different. Only when she mentions capturing Belle, does he protest.

“Why would you do that? That didn’t happen here.”

“Here, she isn’t your True Love,” Roni laughs at his disgusted face, but feels rather sad at it, anyway. This Rumple will never know the story Roni did, of his life with Belle. _Gideon is never going to exist, here,_ she realises.

“I think maybe more important changes may be further ahead,” Gold says.

“The Dark Curse,” Roni murmurs. “I sacrificed my father for it. Pinocchio and Emma went through that wardrobe.”

“Pinocchio didn’t go through the wardrobe, dearie, not here,” Gold says, eyeing her. He waves his hand, coffee glowing briefly before he finally picks it up, sipping it slowly. “Tell me of what you know about Emma Swan’s life.”

Roni frowns. “Pinocchio and Emma appeared on the side of the highway, just outside Storybrooke, near a diner. They were both taken into the system and Pinocchio was given a new name: August Booth. Emma was adopted by the Swan’s. Her blanket with her name on it is one of the few things she has from her childhood. She went back into the system when she was three. She grew up, met Lily Page a few times and then met Neal Cassidy at sixteen. He knocked her up less than a year later, but he framed her for a job of some sort and got her chucked in prison. He didn’t know about Henry.”

“And then…”

“Then, she put him up for adoption. I came to you for help and I adopted the Saviour’s son, in the end. Nine years later, I told him he was adopted and for an entire year, our relationship deteriorated, mostly due to the Book. He found out about the Curse and then he used Mary-Margaret’s credit card to buy a Greyhound to Boston, to find Emma and bring her back.”

“I see. Then what happened.”

“Do I really have to go over this part?” Roni murmurs, feeling that old ache, that hurt and pain she had buried so, _so_ deep.

“Aye, but perhaps at this point, I should interject with the events of this reality,” Gold says. “The Blue Fairy accompanied Emma across the worlds, here.”

“ _Blue?_ ” Roni nearly chokes on her coffee, coughing for a few seconds to clear her throat. “That gnat?”

“Blue was separated from Emma, but she still had her magic even in the land without it.” Gold explains, “She kept watch. Emma’s childhood was much the same, however Blue did, oh… _stalk_ her, rather plainly. Then, when Emma was a teen, full of angst, she accidentally used her magic to banish the poor fairy from the realm. Luckily for Blue, Storybrooke counts as another realm, due to the Dark Curse separating us. Blue ended up in Storybrooke, no false memories and no excuse. Regina locked her up in the asylum after she refused to talk. She’s been there ever since. I managed to get that story out of her when I visited, last.”

 _Blue’s in the asylum._ If it weren’t so strange, Roni might have laughed.

“Are there any other events you feel need to be mentioned? Any deaths? Births?”

“Cinderella had her baby, Alexandra. I had custody of her briefly, though Miss Swan really pulled through on that girl’s part,” Gold smirks. “She owes me a favour, still.”

“That happened in my reality, too,” Roni says. “Anything else?”

“Well obviously, Archie is dead,” Gold says, arms splaying wide. “There’s also Jefferson, of course.”

“He went through the hat,” Roni disagrees, “that doesn’t mean he’s dead.”

“ _Oh,_ ” Gold lowers his arms, “and yet another change shows. No, dearie, he’s dead as a doornail in this realm. Paid for the funeral myself – Regina and I were the only ones to show.”

Roni feels something ugly curl in her gut, forcing herself to remember that he’s still alive in her reality, that he’s teaching Grace how to weave realm-hopping magic into her creations.

“Any deaths on your side?” he questions and Roni shakes her head, briefly before realising that’s not quite true.

“Emma vanquishes Mal, to get that vial of True Love of yours,” Roni says, head tilting. “I trapped her in dragon form in the caves below town.”

“How cruel of you. Maleficent was more than happy to let me take the container off her, if it meant not having to pay rent for that apartment of hers,” Gold states. “She and her little girl are quite the adorable pair. They live below the clock tower.”

Roni jolts, “She and Lily are here, in Storybrooke?”

“Maleficent and _Sofia_ are quite happy, yes. They live the quiet life. Their Storybrooke personas were much louder – I think Regina enjoyed giving them something of a happy life, here, unlike others. The woman has a soft spot for the child.”

“How did they live?” Roni asks, honestly curious.

“Comfortably. Maleficent was known as Beatrice Davide and Sofia, Kara Davide. Sofia still enjoys giving me her newest creation of the day,” Gold motions to the wall behind her and Roni twists, blinking at the sight of a corkboard full of children’s drawings, pinned all over the top of each other. Roni wonders how she could have missed it. “I have box’s worth, from all twenty-eight years of the Curse. Sweet bairn.”

“Children really are quite the weakness of yours, aren’t they?” Roni questions, smiling at her own realisation. She turns back around to see Gold looking at her blankly and scoffs in reply. “Come on. You had Regina cast this curse to get Baelfire back.”

“Yes, I did. You mentioned him earlier. What do you know?”

“I know that he doesn’t use the name _Baelfire_ anymore,” Roni replies. “That favour Emma owes you, save it. There’s a blood globe you either have or will gain, soon. Using it shows you that Baelfire is in New York – SoHo, to be exact. I’ve had the displeasure of visiting his apartment when it was inhabited by…acquaintances, of mine.”

“New York,” Gold breathes the words like they’re diamonds. “And you’re sure?”

“At least in my reality. I’m not saying it’s the same here, but quite honestly, the only thing you do need to do before going to find him is ask Emma Swan if Henry’s father is Neal Cassidy.”

“And why would I need to do that?” Gold questions. Roni finishes the last of her coffee, pointing at her.

“Listen to what I’m saying. I already told you he hasn’t used the name _Baelfire_ in a while, if things are the same, here. If you pull Emma up on her favour to find him, you might be running into a wildfire of other problems that are the _only_ reason he gives you the time of day.”

“So, what?” Gold looks pained, “Bae- Bae is _Neal Cassidy?_ ”

“In my reality, yes,” Roni confirms. “And others. I mentioned the Wish Realm – in that realm, your son was Henry’s father, just like in mine. If the trend follows, Neal is Henry’s father here, too.”

Gold presses his hand to his chest, curling in on himself for a long moment, before he shakes his head. “But I don’t have a blood globe. I don’t have a way to locate him, not like you said.”

“It’ll fall into your lap, unless this is another change,” Roni says. Closing her eyes, briefly, she wonders again if Danny has put the shopping away – if he’s even found it. _If he’s out…hiking, or something, the ice cream is done._ “What is Henry like, here? Does he- does he wear that scarf of his?”

“If you’re talking about the red and grey one, aye, he does. My grandson. My special grandson,” Gold mutters. “Did he ever leave the house, in your reality?”

“…yes. Why?”

Gold glances at her. “Henry is a very special boy. As in, he’s autistic to the point where going to school isn’t just a nightmare, it’s hell. Very high sensory issues, that boy. The only reason he made it to Boston was because of his sunglasses and sound-blocking headphones.”

“Sensory- _sensory issues?_ ” Roni repeats, not quite understanding. “Henry isn’t- he’s _not_ autistic in my reality. No.”

“He is here. It’s probably why our Regina and our sheriff are so close,” Gold says, eyeing her. “Regina caves all the time, when it comes to her son. He went to Boston to pick Emma up and brought her back, all so she could live with them. Whenever she tried to leave town, he had meltdowns.”

“How do you know all this?” Roni frowns deeply, pushing off her astonishment at how different this Henry is so as to press into the real issue.

Gold shrugs. “Regina speaks to Archie, but she also speaks to me. I’m good at listening. Henry also only likes me up to a point, so she can say she’s coming to visit me and he won’t want to come along, unlike if she mentioned the psychiatrist.”

Roni swallows, “I don’t think you should be telling me these things.” It seems like too much – even if Roni is _a_ Regina, she isn’t _this_ Regina.

“Very true,” he says. “Your Henry – he didn’t have that kind of power over you, not like this Henry does.”

“No,” Roni says. “He was…a very black and white thinker. All children are, I suppose.”

“Indeed. The events that brought you here to this reality, they caused you to leave your loved ones behind – did that include Emma Swan?”

Roni blinks, frowning. “I suppose so. In a very broad spectrum of supposition, at least. Emma and I aren’t romantically involved, in my reality. She and Killian Jones were married with kids, actually.” She doesn’t expect the sudden stiffening from her old mentor.

“Killian Jones?” he questions.

“Yes, Killian,” Roni narrows her eyes at him. “He was quite the lady-killer before tying himself to her. Your version should be in town, considering my mother’s presence.”

Gold almost spasms in place. “He’s _here?_ ”

“Yes, do I have to repeat myself? Why are you acting so strange? Is your rivalry conflated, here?”

“Our rivalry,” he repeats, before shaking his head. “The captain and I have a complicated relationship.”

“Define ‘complicated’.”

“He stole Milah away for adventures,” Gold snaps, “and then afterwards, he decided that he was into men. My apologies if my wrath seems undeserved.”

“Into men?” Roni’s eyebrows rise. “Are you serious? I knew he’d flirt with anything on legs _and_ Prince Charming, but into men _singularly?_ ”

“I would know,” Gold grumbles and it takes an embarrassing number of seconds for Roni to understand, her mouth dropping open as she stares at him, speechless. “You’ll let in flies,” he snaps at her.

“You…you and the pirate. _You…_ and _the pirate._ ” Roni gasps, trying not to laugh. “Oh, this is irony. I never would have imagined…are you True Loves, Rumple? Does he make you feel funny inside?”

“Stop it,” he says mulishly.

Roni leans closer, teasing, “Do you stare into each other’s eyes dreamily? Do you lie together in bed and wish that the sun wouldn’t rise, so you could stay together forever?”

He points at her, glaring. “If any more words about the pirate and I come out your pathetic mouth, I’ll turn you into an insect.”

“My lips are sealed,” Roni mimes it for good measure, before smiling at him. “I honestly never would have guessed.”

“You don’t know me. Not _this_ me. You know a heterosexual Rumplestiltskin, obviously.”

“Big words, Gold,” Roni says, before checking the time on Gold’s numerous wall-clocks. It’s closing in on half past five and it’s been nearly half the day since she’s seen Danny. “I’ve got to go. Danny will be worried.”

“Danny?”

“Daniel,” Roni glances at him, lip twitching at his wide eyes. “My son, Henry Daniel. We thought it would be a better idea if he took on another name, considering the other Henry and Regina in town. He’s my son, but from the Wish Realm. You can come meet him, if you like – technically, he’s your grandson as well.”

Gold fidgets, before nodding. “Where do you live?”

… _ah._

Roni is the one fidgeting now. “Don’t get angry. I couldn’t think of anywhere else.” She waves her hand, transporting the both of them to the cabin, to find Danny on the ground by the fire watching a ‘how to’ video on YouTube on one of the laptops. He looks up as they arrive, pausing the video with one click. Roni raises an eyebrow. _He got it set up already?_

“You’re back,” he says, standing up. He looks Gold up and down. “Dark One.”

“I hear you’re my grandson from another reality,” Gold says, eyes locked on the young adult – but Roni sees when his eyes stray, a frown appearing on his face. “This is my cabin.”

“We’ve only been here since this morning,” Roni says quickly, nervous. “We had absolutely nothing, until you gave me that money.”

“I understand, though I’ll expect minimal rent, until you’re set up in your new home.” Gold straightens his back, sniffing. “Is that fish?”

“Uh…” Danny winces, “I fished in your pond? We had no food.”

Roni shuts her eyes, feeling the embarrassment mount up alongside her worry. What if he kicks them out? What if he pettily reports them to Sheriff Swan for squatting? What if, what if.

“I see,” Gold steps closer to Danny, banishing his glamour temporarily, looking at his face. After a long moment, he puts the glamour back into place. “You’re my grandson. Even if your counterpart here is not, _you_ are. I’ve changed my mind. I’ll make a deal with you.”

“I don’t make deals with you,” Danny says, a hostile edge to his voice as he narrows his eyes. “The last time I did that, you trapped me here.”

“That wasn’t me, dearie. Hear me out.” Gold leans forwards on his cane, smirking. “This cabin can be yours, completely. I’ll give it to you, free of charge.”

“Gold, what are you doing?” Roni questions, unsure over whether to let this continue.

“In return,” Gold says, smiling, “you work at my shop. I’ll even pay you.”

A crease forms on Danny’s brow. “Work for you?”

“Aye. An assistant, perhaps even inheritor…an apprentice, even.”

 _There._ “Do you think Danny has magic?” Roni quirks an eyebrow. “That’s a leap. Your magic was given, not borne.”

“But this boy is the son of the Saviour,” Gold glances back, “and I’d be an idiot not to notice Emma Swan’s _very_ powerful magic.”

“Ah,” Roni smiles widely, “but this is why we should have gone over the rest of my life. The Wish Realm was created by Emma Swan by a genie, when she wished she was never the Saviour. This Henry was born from a True Love child, but not _the Saviour._ ”

Gold pauses, frowning, before he shrugs. “No matter. He’s still my grandson. What do you say, _Danny?_ ”

“…I don’t know how this world works,” Danny murmurs, still frowning. “I don’t see how I could be of help. Her Majesty… _Mother,_ she put in good word for me at the station. I would be a part of the town guard.”

“An admirable position,” Gold says, encouraging. “A part-time position, then? Perhaps you could even learn of the Land Without Magic under me as well. I have this realm’s version of a law degree imprinted on my psyche – I know it well. You wouldn’t have to rely on Roni, here.”

Roni can see his words are having an effect on her son. _Don’t listen to him,_ she wants to say, but there’s nothing untowards about his offer – in truth, it’s something she might expect from Gold. She still remembers when Henry went undercover in her reality, working there with his grandfather, wearing that well-fitting suit. A part of her wants this Henry to wear it, now, for Danny to see the variety of clothing in this realm and fall in love with something, with a style.

“This cabin would be mine?” Danny looks around, obviously being convinced.

“Aye, it would. Your mother here already made a deal with me for another house, so she has somewhere she can live in town. There’s enough room for you there, but I sense you’re an old-fashioned man.”

Roni gives Gold a _look_. Danny is barely more than a boy. He might be an adult by law, but he is not a man, yet – not for another few years. It turns Danny’s opinion, though and he nods firmly.

“A part-time position,” Danny confirms. “What do I call you?”

“Mr Gold, unless you feel more comfortable with _Grandfather._ ” Gold grins, obviously loving the term. Danny’s lip twitches, obviously catching onto his glee. Soon, a small smile appears and Roni’s doubt lightens.

 _I can deal with Rumple if he steps out of line,_ she thinks. _Let Danny have more people, here. Let him have some semblance of family._

“Thank-you for the opportunity…Grandfather.”

Gold looks like he’s on top of the moon. “Excellent, Grandson. Now, for your cover stories – you haven’t identities here, yes? It won’t be long until someone tries to look you up and discovers the discrepancies. I’ll do you both the courtesy of creating the appropriate documents, of course.”

Roni puts her working arm on her hip. “And what are you planning to do?”

“Well,” he smirks at her, “making you my daughter shouldn’t be _too_ hard.”

“ _Ha,_ ” Roni snorts, shaking her head. “You can try. Unfortunately for you, I’ve already interacted with several key players, as you might call them. I used my social security number from Seattle and claimed to be a bastard of Prince Sebastian in the Enchanted Forest. Danny is supposedly Xavier IV. If you want to make having Danny as your grandson seem legitimate, we can tell anyone who asks the truth: that his father is your son.”

“How does the timing for that work if my son isn’t in the Enchanted Forest? The Blue Fairy will see through it,” Gold warns.

“We make up another son. Were you a _nun_ in all your time as the Dark One?” Roni challenges. “We just refuse to answer, beyond the fact that he’s another son. It’s true in many aspects.”

“Because my father was from another reality,” Danny adds, sounding positive. “We wouldn’t even be lying.”

Gold looks slightly disappointed as he steps a little away from Danny, making something of a circle with the two of them. “Write down what details you gave the bank and I’ll forge some documents,” he orders. “Veronica North?”

“Veronica Gabrielle North,” Roni adds, grimacing. “You might want to hurry. Who knows when Sheriff Swan might try finding me.”

“The records in the town hall will be her first port of call, unless you had any sort of paperwork in the station,” Gold says and Roni can _hear_ the encouragement there. Rolling her eyes, Roni tries to remember what few priors she had from Rogers’ station, looking up.

“Drunkenness, loud noise and four- no, _five_ cases of assault, usually for punching someone in the face and kicking them out my bar for being creeps. Though I broke this guys kneecap once with my baseball bat. He roofied someone’s drink.” There’s no reply and Roni looks between Danny and Gold, who’re looking at her with faces of surprise. She glares at them. “What? Am I not allowed to be badass?”

“It’s just…unexpected,” Gold says, “though considering your past, it shouldn’t be. You’ve done worse. I just didn’t expect such hands-on measures. I’ll falsify some police-reports by Graham during the Curse.”

“Don’t add the baseball bat one,” Roni says, cautious. “I don’t exactly have a bar history and Red has never seen me in Storybrooke before – as Ruby she practically lived in the Rabbit Hole.”

“I’ll… _twist_ things,” Gold promises, but there’s something about his expression she doesn’t like. Roni eyes him for a second before looking to Danny, needing something like positivity from him. His expression is still twisted, though, like he can’t imagine it. After a moment, he asks her a question.

“What does ‘roofied’ mean?”

Roni grimaces. “Practically poisoning someone’s drink. Rapists usually like to use them so they can take advantage of their mark. You roofie someone, or get roofied. Part of being a bartender is watching out for it, just in case, though it’s the responsibility of the owner of the drink to watch their own.”

Gold takes out a pen and notebook from his pocket, handing them to her. “Write out any pertinent information about your cover identities. Names, dates of birth, significant events, family – anything. Quickly. We should have dealt with this sooner, before you went off to speak to the Charmings.”

“I know,” Roni mutters, going over to the dining table and scribbling down info, half-listening to Gold’s conversation with Danny.

“What’s your name here, boy?” Gold questions.

“Danny. Daniel. Daniel North.”

“You were Henry, before coming here,” Gold says, sitting in one of the armchairs, Danny joining him cautiously. “I’ll be making you forms of identification that weren’t necessary in the Enchanted Forest. Was there anyone important to you that you wish to incorporate into your new name?”

Danny swallows uncomfortably. “Not anyone I can use.”

“Are you very sure of that?” Gold asks.

“I’m sure,” Danny says, before pausing. “I suppose there was my great grandfather, King Leopold.”

Roni’s heart almost stops. She doesn’t even hear herself speak.

“No.”

Gold looks her away, _amused_. “No, dearie?”

“No.” Roni says again, clenching the pen tightly, staring at the notebook. “I’d _never_ name my son after _him_.”

“I thought this was my choice?” Danny argues, “He was a great man.”

“He married me. You have no idea what- no idea about _anything._ ”

Danny balls his fists up, “He was great.”

“He was _horrible._ ” Roni hisses, glaring at her son. “You weren’t there. You weren’t _married_ to him.”

Danny goes to argue more, but Gold puts his hand up, looking at Roni.

“And wouldn’t it make _sense_ if he had his name? The Dark Curse was meant to punish. You’ve taken on the guise of being Regina’s cousin; _naturally_ you would hate the strange man who married your young _child_ of a cousin.”

“We weren’t cursed,” Roni says, voice like ice, eyes flashing. Gold doesn’t reply to that and Roni wonders if that means he’s not going to do it, but her stomach still drops. _He’ll do it. He’ll push me and push me, trying to see how far I go until I break. This won’t break me._ Roni feels nauseous, though, sick to her stomach. _I’d never name my son after the King. I never would. No. **No**._

Pressing her hand to her face, Roni tries to ignore the rolling that’s more like boulders than butterflies, shivering as she remembers too much, too soon. _Captured. Bruised. Aching to hold them while they **breathe**. _ She squeezes her eyes shut, almost falling out her chair when Gold’s hand clasps her shoulder, jumping at his touch.

“Dearie,” he murmurs. “He’s dead, girl. Get over it. You’ve nothing to fear from it.”

“I can’t help it,” Roni mutters to him, ashamed at her reaction. “I’ve not had cause to think of it all in…in _years._ All the reminders were rebranded. Snow was my friend. I think the last time I ever was… _afraid_ was when my granddaughter was born.”

Gold frowns. “How old _are_ you?”

Roni’s lip twitches. “Wouldn’t you like to know?” She was the one to bring it up – it’s no surprise that she remembers it now, Lucy’s birth such a happy occasion. Only, after dark when Ella was asleep, Henry off telling his friends of his new daughter, Roni had held her and remembered another dark-skinned princess she’d held by a window, looking up at the stars.

“…it still makes sense,” Gold eventually says and this time, Roni fights to keep control, nodding stiffly. His hand leaves her shoulder and he taps the notebook before turning back to Danny, asking him if he knows how to use that sword by the fireplace.

Roni puts pen to paper, trying not to notice how her handwriting shakes.

* * *

_EMMA_

“Hey, kid,” she says, leaning on Henry’s doorframe. He glances over at her from his desk, pausing as he does his homework, putting down his pencil to sign _hello_ at her. Emma doesn’t hesitate before signing back, asking him how he’s doing, pausing before stepping into his room, asking him to remind her the sign for homework, pointing at it.

Henry does, waiting until she’s copied it into the series of gestures, asking him how his homework is doing. When he signs back _fine, hard_ , Emma taps the watch on his wrist, signing to him again.

_Dinner, five minutes._

His nose wrinkles up, before signing back rapidly. Emma immediately signs back for him to repeat it slower, but he only repeats it at the same speed and she finds herself lost.

 _Talk, English,_ she eventually signs, holding up four fingers and tapping them to her chin twice, clapping her right hand over the back of her left. After a moment, she adds a small shaken fist over her chest for _please._

 _Why?_ He asks.

 _I don’t understand,_ Emma signs. Henry stamps his feet a couple of times, but hums a few times, then speaks out loud.

“I don’t know what’s for dinner, but _please,_ I don’t want lasagne tonight,” he begs, making puppy-dog eyes at her. “ _Quiero tener un sándwich para la cena_.”

“Tell your mom that earlier, next time.” Emma says, crossing her arms. “I’m still learning Spanish, remember, so I don’t understand what you said.”

Henry makes a face. “I want a sandwich.”

“You get sandwiches for lunch, not dinner,” she remembers what Regina said so long ago about sandwiches, when she first moved in. Those words are something ingrained into her, now – she hasn’t had a sandwich for dinner in over a year. “Want to come help me set the table?”

“Not really,” Henry says, but he gets up from his desk, taking her hand. Emma smiles at him, squeezing it lightly. She’d missed the kid desperately in the Enchanted Forest and she’s glad to have him back, now. Going out the door and down the stairs, Henry doesn’t let go of her hand until they reach the dining room, where Regina is setting out the colourful ceramic bowls and sideplates. Emma raises her eyebrow at her.

“Henry came to help with cutlery,” Emma pronounces, Regina giving a smile to her son before handing over the handful, setting out the last red bowl before speaking to her.

“A word in the kitchen?”

“Sure,” Emma looks to Henry, ruffling his hair. “You alright here, kid?”

“I’ll wait for you,” he says, putting the knives down on the wrong side, like he does every time. Emma’s lip quirks, reminded of why he doesn’t usually help.

When he sets out the cutlery, they have to use it with those hands as well or he’ll freak out inside – usually meaning his stress levels will rise, _meaning_ he’ll have a meltdown of some sort in the next week. Regina learnt through trial and error, raising Henry, though when Emma first arrived there were lots of freak-outs and lots of meltdowns as she learnt his habits and boundaries. Trying to leave when _she_ got too stressed out with it all wasn’t an option.

 _Probably how we started hate-fucking,_ Emma thinks as she follows Regina into the kitchen. _Destressing is fun with this woman._

“I looked into that woman,” she says once Henry is out of sight. Emma frowns at her low voice. “I had no records of her.”

“So…she’s unregistered? Is that even possible?” Emma questions.

“I could probably check again tomorrow, or have Annie stay late,” Regina says, clenching her jaw. “Roni North. I don’t pretend to know everyone in town, but I had thirty years to get very familiar with this town and she had the chance to pop out of the woodwork when you arrived.”

“Hey,” Emma reaches out, tucking a stray hair behind her ear, stepping closer to her. “Calm down. We’ll figure this out.”

“She says she saw my mother,” Regina says, the tension in her shoulders visible. “And she looks _so_ much like me. I’ve never even heard of her before this. Sebastian had bastards, I know he did, but he was open about them – I would have heard if he had one who looked like me. Mother would have been all over it.”

“Maybe that’s why you didn’t hear about it,” Emma suggests. “I mean, she’s older than you, supposedly. Maybe she looked different when she was younger. Your mother had a rep long before you could have realised – maybe her dad hid her.”

“Maybe,” Regina sighs, rubbing the bridge of her nose. “I haven’t thought about Julieta and Matias in _years_ , Emma. I executed their assassin. I’d- I’d forgotten, for a while. What does that make me?”

“To be fair, it’s been a long time,” Emma jokes. “How old are you, again?”

“Shush,” Regina says, leaning to kiss her gently. Emma leans into it, hand coming to rest on her hip, before Regina ends it. “I’ll check my records again. Maybe she’s down under a different name.”

“I have her number. I can make conversation, ask her about her life in Storybrooke,” Emma frowns. “When I was talking to her, did you get the same vibe I did? That someone else hurt her?”

“Yes,” Regina agrees. “She _did_ say she wasn’t alone. Her son was hurt, too.”

“I’ll chase the doctors report up tomorrow, too, while I collect Archie’s death certificate,” Emma says, feeling bitter. “We need to tell Henry.”

“That’s what the plates are for,” Regina mutters. “We’re having chilli, tonight.”

“He loves chilli,” Emma says, slightly distressed. “Won’t that make it horrible?”

“I’m running out of dishes to break bad news over.” Regina says, “It was this or tacos.”

“Don’t ever break bad news over your tacos,” Emma begs, “Please.”

A small smile tugs at the corner of her lip and Emma kisses her again, just as Henry calls out, asking for dinner.

“We’re just coming, Henry,” Emma replies, before stealing another kiss, grabbing the nearby bowl of rice to bring to the table, Regina bringing along the chilli and avocado slices. They join their son at the table, sitting down at the table, dimming the lights to halfway so Henry can take off his sunglasses.

“Thanks, mom,” Henry says as Regina serves him his plate. Regina presses a kiss to his head before sitting down.

“Your welcome, Henry.”

* * *

Later that night, Roni waits until Danny is asleep before teleporting to the town line. The mark on the ground is written in red spray paint and far from the thick, painted-on orange line that she’s used to seeing at road out of town. She tugs her jacket around her shoulders, cursing her sling and broken arm as the damp air chills her cold. For a moment she looks out into the outside world, before reaching seeing her hand slip through the barrier.

 _It makes the townspeople forget. What would it do to me?_ Roni wonders if she counts – if she would turn into the _real_ Regina Mills, the cursed persona of a town mayor who never existed. _I won’t chance it,_ she decides, before reaching deep into her magic. She plans it out carefully inside, pulling together more wards for the sake of protecting Storybrooke than she ever has before. They press against her as she holds them, strong and steady, moving her hand so it’s resting _just_ against the wards already there.

“This is my town,” she murmurs, before slowly releasing the wards from inside, the magic still releasing too fast for her liking. Purple slips up and around her, the sky shimmering as a dome forms around her home. “Don’t take them down,” Roni begs her other self, knowing she could do it, if she really wanted. “ _Please,_ ” she begs, praying. The physical manifestation of the wards fade and Roni goes to transfer away, only to hear the faint thrum of an engine.

Turning, Roni sees headlights appear around the corner and quickly, she enacts a spell of invisibility, pushing her magic far, far down into herself, feeling like she’s bereft of a limb as she stumbles towards the treeline. The car approaches quickly, slowing to a stop as the spray-paint comes into line with the headlights.

 _That’s Rumple’s car,_ she thinks, cocking her head. He gets out, not even projecting his magic, solely focused on whatever’s in his trunk. Roni daren’t move, watching and waiting as he smiles at the contents.

“This will only take a moment,” he says, before abruptly hauling a man out. Roni jerks slightly, not expecting it, recognising the man as one of Hook’s old crew, the red hat a familiar item on top of his round head. He rights the man, putting him on his feet, tugging a gag off his mouth. Roni watches as the pirate twists, raising bound hands.

“D-d-don’t push me over,” he says, walking backwards as Gold approaches, magic prickling outwards in menace, meant to scare the man. Roni doesn’t even think he senses her, so focused on his prey. “If I cross the line, I’ll lose my memory. It’s a cruel fate.”

“A fate you were more than willing to bestow upon a little girl and her mother,” Gold says, causing Roni to frown. _Who? Does he mean Mal and her daughter?_ “You know, Sir Maurice _was_ one of the men to join King George on his wolf-hunt, I’m not surprise he doesn’t like dragons.”

 ** _Definitely_** _Mal and her daughter._ Roni purses her lips, not sure what to think about this. _Gold has a soft spot for this reality’s Lily. What was her name again…_

Gold hits the man with his cane, who loses his balance and falls, nearly crossing the line. Roni bites her lip, watching on in nervousness, eyes flickering to the invisible wards now conjoined with the remaining ones. She can practically see the magic melding, her connection to her wards making her aware of the morphosis.

Gold takes the man’s hat. “You’ve had this rag since the day we met. Why is it so important to you?” He reaches into his pocket, taking out a clear glass vial.

“My grandmother made it for me when I was a boy,” he says as Gold pours the contents over it, a shimmer of magic glimmering and fading. “It’s always brought me good fortune, what difference does it make?”

“ _Oh ho ho_ , all the difference in the world,” he throws the hat back at him, “It’s your only chance.”

The man – mistakenly – sits up, putting the hat back on his head, asking what he means only to be cut off as Gold kicks him across the line. Roni lets her magic unfurl then, invisibility lifting as she comes to his side.

“You _idiot,_ ” she glares, “Do you know what you’ve done?”

Gold narrows his eyes at her as his head snaps sideways, but he doesn’t answer her, looking back at the pirate. Roni grits her teeth, doing the same.

“What’s your name?” Gold asks as he looks up at them in… _wonder? Confusion?_

“William Smee,” he says.

“And who am I?” Gold asks.

“…Rumplestiltskin,” Smee says, standing, in awe. “The Dark One. I remember everything!” He says, moving back towards the town line. Roni looks away right as he bangs into her wards, stumbling back. “What? What is this?” He questions.

“Yes, dearie,” Gold looks to her, “What did you do?”

Roni glares at him. “I protected the town from outsiders. Except now, _Smee_ is an outsider! I could have told you that potion worked if you had bothered to mention it!”

“Well, if you wish to retrieve him, the answer is simple,” Gold waves his hand around, “Lower the wards.”

“I can’t,” Roni grits her teeth, looking to them, reaching out with her magic and already finding them knotted in with the pre-existing frame. “It’s too late. I was trying to stop Peter Pan’s men from getting in.”

“Peter- Peter Pan?” Smee stutters, eyes wide. “What do you mean by that? How can Peter Pan have men in the Land Without Magic.”

“He’s after the heart of the Truest Believer,” Roni steps forwards, so very close to the line, pointing at him. “You’re trapped out there, now, until I can figure out a way to get you back inside. I’ve done it a different way from last time. If they find you, don’t tell them _anything_. Even if they lock you up and promise you all the gold in the Enchanted Forest, you keep your trap _shut._ ”

“But- but where do I go?”

“There’s a road-side diner, up the road,” Roni says, “unless you’d rather camp nearby for an unknown amount of time.”

“I…can I camp?” Smee grimaces.

“We’ll arrange something,” Gold says, before grabbing Roni’s broken elbow, causing a sharp ache as he jerks her away from them. “You, with me.”

“Don’t touch me,” she pulls out of his grasp.

“Get in the car,” he points, angry. Roni huffs, but walks around to the passenger side, getting in and watching Smee stand in front of the town line forlornly, up until Gold starts driving and turns them around. “That was reckless.”

“We can’t let Greg Mendell or any other agents get in,” Roni says. “You don’t know what he wants.”

“And you do? Miss I’m-from-another-reality-so-I-know-best? Haven’t we already established that our realities are different? Now a man is trapped outside the town, because of you.”

Roni scoffs, “Like they’re _that_ different. Tell me, is Peter Pan still your father in this reality?”

Gold grips the steering wheel of the car tightly. “He is.”

“Henry was the key to Pan’s quest for immortality, in my reality,” Roni says. “He was the Truest Believer. I don’t take shortcuts when it comes to Henry safety.”

“Well, according to you, this happened in a different way last time.”

“ _Last time,_ you and I were already stuck on Neverland with the Charmings trying to rescue Henry when Belle raised the new protections,” Roni says. “I was being pro-active.”

“It was dangerous.”

“I never said it wasn’t.”

“How am I supposed to explain this to Regina? New, random wards appearing around town?” Gold questions, driving into town. “You’re going to explain to me _exactly_ what you did and then maybe, I can lie to her face and tell them I cast them and why. Then, you are telling me everything else you missed out about your reality’s future.”

“Oh, fuck you,” Roni grumbles, leaning back in her seat. _I’m protecting Henry. Hell, I’m protecting Danny, too and I’ll keep doing it. Fuck you, Rumple. I’m going to keep my son safe._


End file.
